Backlinks - What Grinds My Gears

Have any of your seen that episode of Family Guy, where Peter has his own segment on the news where he goes on and on about what grinds his gears....This is my version...

Do you know what grinds my gears??

Forum Posting to Gain Backlinks Grinds My Gears!!!

You do not understand how much this drives me nuts. I am browsing some of my favorite forums and all I see is links in every signature line. What irritates me more is that links are not even related to the forum!! Honestly, I can say that I include my links in signatures lines on forums, but I do not do it to build backlinks, I do it gain visitors. The forums I participate in are related to my niche not to improve my search engine rankings!!

Link Exchange to Build Backlinks Grinds My Gears!

If you have a blog or a website, you know what I am talking about when I say that every morning when I check my email I have requests for link exchange. It drives me crazy. Link exchange does not raise your search engine rankings, back in the day they did carry more weight but not anymore. If your blog contains good content, I will find your articles and will most likely link to your post. So stop spamming me because I am not reading your email, I am not even visiting your webpage.

Directory Submission to Build Backlings Grinds My Gears!!

Directory submission used to be a great way to build backlinks and they were well respected by the search engines. Wake up people, it is not the 90's anymore!! Who uses directories anymore in the first place? Do not submit your website to every single directory in hopes of raising your search engine ranking. You will be disappointed. Almost all links from directories are garbage and mean absolutely nothing. I would only suggest maybe DMOZ and Yahoo Directories, even those are losing their value. So STOP WASTING YOUR TIME!!!

Blog Commenting to Build Backlinks

Blog commenting to build backlinks really grinds my gears! I can not stand people leaving stupid little comments just so they can get a backlink. If you are going to comment on a blog in order to gain a backlink at least comment something useful. Do not put a one sentence answer. More than likely your blog comment will not get approved. Do not waste your time!! AND DO NOT MAKE IT SO OBVIOUS!!!

Testing Different Elements of Your Landing Page

Testing your landing pages is very critical when operating a successful website. Continuously performing A/B tests on your landing pages will provide you with more conversions which in turn means more profit. More profit is always good right? :)

Some people that do performing testing on their landing pages are not conducting the tests on all of elements on the website. Below are some of the elements that I test for.

Testing The Title of Your Landing Page

The title of your landing page plays a crucial role in your visitors actions. The title of your landing page should grab the attention of the visitor. A poorly written title in your landing page will result in the visitor leaving your website.  There are a few different elements you can check for when testing your title such as font color, font size, and wording.

Testing The Text In Your Call to Action

Improving your conversion rate on your landing page could be as simple as changing the text in your call to action. Use provocative words in your call to action to generate more conversions. If you need help with this, I recommend Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas by Richard Bayan.

Testing the Positioning of Your Call to Action

Move around your call to action's in a few different areas and see which areas perform the best. When you determine which areas convert the best, use the top two and watch your conversions skyrocket :)

Testing The Style of Your Call to Action

Try different things such as changing the color and font used. You must not forget the size as well. You want your call to action to get noticed so in general bigger is better. There are exceptions to this however, you want to make sure that is does not look too tacky. I also prefer to use call to actions with rounded corners instead of square corners as I feel they could be interpreted as ads.

Testing Your Sales Copy

The object is to create something people are going to read. Do not make it lengthy. If you want to keep the same information but reduce the amount of text consider adding bullets rather than sentences for your key points. One of the best books I read regarding internet sales copy is Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time  by Maria Veluso.

Testing Graphics on Your Landing Page

Graphics can play an instrumental role in whether or not customers convert. Play around with a few different pictures and see which ones lead to more conversions.

Testing Promotional Offers on Landing Page

Create two different landing pages but offer to different promotions on each. For instance, you could give landing page number one free shipping while the second landing page give a certain percent off.

I challenge you to find different elements of your landing page which effect your conversion rate. You would be amazed at the number of things that can be used to increase your conversion rate.

If you would like me to improve your conversion rates, I am available for hire on oDesk.com. Here are some other projects that you can outsource on oDesk.com.  Click the image below to hire me. :)

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List of the 10 Best Free Classified Ads Websites

Free advertising is always nice. One of the best ways to get free advertising is through free classified ad websites. I listed below some of my favorite places to post free classified ads. I am not affiliated with any of these classified ad websites and am not making any money from the rankings on this list. These are strictly my personal opinion of the best classified ads websites on the internet.

Craigslist.org

This is the most popular free classifieds site out there that is why is ranked number one on our list. :)

Backpage.com

Backpage.com is ranked number two on our list of free classified ads websites. Backpage.com is Eerily similar to Craigslist. A little history on the company, they stated escorts could post classifieds after Craigslist removed their erotic section.

Oodle.com

Laid out differently than Craigslist and Backpage but still organized nonetheless.

eBayClassifieds.com

Coming in at number 4 on our list of free classified site is ebayclassifieds.com. This is the official classified ad section of eBay. No, this is not an auction site. Formerally, this website was kijiji.com but was purchased by eBay.

USfreeads.com

USfreeads.com is a very simple free classified ads website. I purchased an upgrade to my membership which allowed me to place unlimited ads. However, I do not feel it was worth the money. I would stick to a free membership. This allows you to have five classified ads at a time.

Adlandpro.com

Adlandpro is number 6 on our list of free classified ads websites. Their website is targeted for primarily for promoting online businesses, but they do have a few other sections as well. They do have paid programs, but probably not worth your money.

Hoobly.com

Hoobly.com is a well organized website. It uses your IP address to detect your location. It is somewhat similar to Craigslist. It gets plenty of traffic which is why it ranks number 7 on our list of free classified ad websites.

BestWayClassifieds.com

Number 8 on our list on our countdown of free classified ads websites is BestWayClassifieds.com. They claim to be the fastest growing free classified website out there. Whether or not that is true, Google only knows lol....Different looking website with plenty of traffic. The top visited listing almost 89,000 hits in a 4 month period. Not too bad. :)

ChooseYourItem.com

The majority of this site is different types of automobiles and real estate. They do offer free text listings of other items however.

ClassifiedAds.com

Wrapping our list of the top 10 free classified ads website is classifiedads.com. They have a nice layout. They have a nice search option. Gets enough traffic to be worthy enough to be on this list. :)

Be sure to check out my article on tips for posting ads on Craigslist. While the website states its use for Craigslist. The tips can be applied to all of these classified ads websites on this list. I also recommend reading this article about how to improve your conversion rate.

If you need help, I am available for hire on oDesk.com. Here are some other projects you can outsource on oDesk.com as well.

10 Tips for Creating Effective Craigslist Ads

Craigslist can be a great tool for generating leads at no cost, however, it can also be a big waste of time if you do not post the ads correctly.I have listed a few techniques I use to generate leads on Craigslist and other free classified ads websites.

Catchy Title
When writing your title on Craigslist, you must ensure that it sticks out in order to get more visitors. Throw in some symbols around your words. Something I do before posting an ad on Craigslist is to ask myself if I would click on this. If yes, it is fine. If no, revise it!

Keep it Local
This maybe common sense for some, but I recommend placing your desired location in the location box. This makes the Craigslist ad seem more real and are more likely to get more clicks.

Post Frequently
Classified ads are sometimes hard to find if they get buried below all of the new listings. The tip i have to prevent this is through posting daily. I really do not recommend posting more than 3 times a day per free classified ads website. Just remember quality over quantity.




Test Your Craigslist Ads
When you are advertising your website on Craigslist or any other free classified website, you should have multiple ads. You can even create specific URL's for each and test them to see which ads are getting the most visitors or more important which ads are converting.

Keywords at the Bottom
This is one of my favorite tips for advertising on Craigslist. This is espicially useful if you do not have any other text in the advertisement. Just list keywords at the end of the advertisement. Doing this will allow users to search and find your ad more easily.

Link Photo to a Form
This tip is great for capturing leads. It is pretty self explanatory. Post an ad with just a picture and your keywords of course :) Then create a link to a registraton page. Remember to keep it simple with just a name and email address. After that, you can gain more information from them. :)

Offer Discount Codes
Discount codes are a great way to get visitors to your website. Everybody wants a good deal. Why not reward visitors on found your advertisements on Craigslist with a 10% off coupon! This can be good for testing the effectiveness of your ads if you do not know how to use URL's to do this.

Use "Free" Section
If you offer a free product or service this can be a great way to gain leads on Craigslist. If you offer a free ebook or newsletter, this is perfect. You can make your money through affiliate links in the newsletter or ebook. Works great :)

Less is More
In general when posting on free classified ads website, the phrase less is more fits perfectly. You want about 2 ads a day on each site. Also, less for more applies to the ad itself. Keep it simple. You do not need every detail. The goal is to get them to email or call you or visit your website. Then you can sell your product or service to them.

Multiple Calls to Action
What is the goal of your Craigslist ad? Most likely, like I stated above, the goal is simple to get readers to either contact you or visit your website. Give the reader plenty of opportunities within the ad to do so. Do not just give one chance at the end! You could be missing out on a lot of money!

While this article states that the tips are for Craigslist, these same tips can also be applied to other free classified websites.

SBA Seminars Offering Courses - Free for Veterans

As some of you may know I serviced in the United States Navy for 8 years. I am always looking to better myself. One of my goals is to learn more about Quickbooks. Just the other day, my wife was browsing through the Sunday paper searching for coupons. She happened to glance at the classified section where she found a list of events in our area. She noticed a Quickbooks seminar near our house. Unfortunately, it was too late to register for the seminar because the paper was sitting on the counter for a few days.

I did some web research and found out more events that were coming up. To my surprise, these events that normally cost around $35 a piece were being offered free to military veterans. I immediately registered for ten seminars!!

The program contains many seminars which are aimed at helping individuals who own or want to own their own business. The majority of the seminars I signed up were about Quickbooks. There were a few seminars which did not contain information about Quickbooks such as Dealing With Difficult People and Working With Different Generations of People. Both of these seminars would be great not only with starting your own business but also as assets if you just want to improve your resume.

If you are interested, click here to find the nearest location where these seminars are being held. At the bottom left of the page, you can search by location. You are looking for "Find the Nearest SBDC Center".

5 Projects That Webmasters Can Outsource on oDesk.com

Owning and operating can be a very difficult task especially when starting out when you still have a full time job as many webmasters do. There are many tedious tasks that take up much of your time. So why not outsource these tedious tasks and concentrate on the larger tasks. I have compiled a short list of projects that you can outsource using oDesk.com.

Outsource Article Writing Services on oDesk.com

Article writing can be extremely tough especially when just starting as a new webmaster or a blogger. I used to spend the majority of my time writing each and every article for my websites, but now I use article writing services. I prefer oDesk.com because I can view reviews of previous customers who outsource their article writing services. I also love that companies bid to work on your article writing. You can even ask each writer to submit a sample article of their work. If you are not comfortable placing a large order, just get a single article and check the quality of the writer. If you like him, place a larger order. I usually submit a list of article topics and keywords I want to rank high for. The cost of article writing services on oDesk.com can range from $2 an article to $25. I usually spend about $7 an article for a good quality article.

Outsource Research Services on oDesk.com

I outsource research projects on oDesk.com all the time! I usually use them in conjunction with other projects that I use. For instance, I outsourced a project in which I asked that I get a list of all real estate agents that worked for a particular company within my state. I also asked the researcher to provide me with email addresses, address and phone numbers. I used this data to market a particular product I developed to the company. Research services are relatively cheap and can be a great investment. I usually just ask the bidders to submit a price for the particular project rather than an hourly rate. Depending on the amount of research needed, expect to pay between $5 and $25 possible more depending on how much data you are asking for.

Outsource Telemarketing Services Using oDesk.com

I absolutely hate talking on the telephone! Even with my own wife LOL!! When I seen that you could outsource telemarketing services on oDesk.com I was sooo relieved. :) My first concern when I seen this service was that English was not a first language for the telemarketers.  I am not racist, but I feel that the majority of my customers would prefer a telemarketer which spoke very good English. When you outsource telemarketing services on oDesk.com, you write a detailed description and state you prefer someone without an accent. You can also use Skype to interview prospective employees to validate their English speaking skills. I have a few tips for outsourcing your telemarketing services. My first tip is to include your phone number and a few friends on your calling list to validate professionalism and skills. My second tip is to offer performance based commission. This always works well with me. They do not make money unless you do :)

Outsource Data Entry on oDesk.com

Outsourcing data entry is becoming increasingly popular on oDesk.com. You can use data entry for almost anything you can think of. For instance, posting pictures to your websites Facebook page or Facebook pages. In the past I used them to input customer data into a CRM database. Most data entry clerks are also proficient at basic bookkeeping as well. :)

Outsource Email Handling Using oDesk.com

Sometimes it is impossible to handle emails in a timely manner. To be honest, I do not outsource my email handling very often, but I do on certain occasions. For instance, I may outsource for a few days if I know I have something planned like a birthday party or a vacation. If you do not have very many emails, it may be best to charge as a per email basis or you could charge a flat fee.

Outsource Adwords Campaign on oDesk.com

Adwords can become very costly if you are familiar with it. This is why I ALWAYS recommend to new webmasters to outsource their Google Adwords campaign. It is always important to remember to look at reviews for all prospective employees, but it is especially important when dealing with your marketing campaign as you can lose lots of money! Adwords specialists are often familiar with conversion tracking which will allow them to see which keywords are working. Ask them to provide constant updates and reports.

Getting Visitors to Your Website Using Evergreen Articles

I began my writing career on Associated Content about five years ago. When I first got started, I did struggle a bit as my articles received plenty of traffic for a day or two, then gradually the hits would go down for the page. I was determined to succeed on the website. I came across an article which informed me of different article types. After reading the article, I realized that I was only writing for current popular content which would explain my traffic drop off.

As I read further, I learned about evergreen articles. Evergreen articles contain content which people will always need and search. After I read the article, I thought about what types of articles would best suit evergreen articles.

Types of Evergreen Articles

"How To" Evergreen Articles

The first idea for evergreen articles were "how to" articles. People are always going to want to know how to do something themselves. It is important to choose an evergreen topic along with a how to article however. For instance, choosing a program or a cell phone that could be discontinued or extremely less popular in the future would work great for the short term as it would be popular but the popularity would soon fade.

Product Reviews

Product reviews are also make for very good evergreen articles. Visitors will come to your site searching information about a particular product prior to purchasing it. Your evergreen product review should contain unbiased information and contain pros and cons about the product. Ultimately, visitors are going to trust your opinion. Product reviews are good for generating income through affiliate marketing.

Writing About Past Events

Writing about past events is one of my favorite types of evergreen articles. Some people do not like this type of evergreen article as they feel there is not money to made from writing about past events. However, writing about past events can get targeted visitors to your website. As with any page on a website, you should have a goal for the visitors. You could get users to sign up for a newsletter or direct them to your online store which contains products that your visitors are interested in.

How Often Should I Submit Articles to Ezine?

People often ask me how often they should submit articles to sites like Ezine. There is not a specific answer to this question. Personally I would submit at least one article per week to Ezine. At the bare minimum I would say submit two articles a month.

Why Should You Submit Articles To Ezine?

Ezine is the most popular online article submission site and is well respected by Google. If you submit articles to Ezine often, you will see a boost in your search engine results as well as an increase in the number of visitors that you have.

What Should I Do If I Can't Write One Article a Week?

One article per week is not very difficult by itself, but we know that you probably are writing 2-3 other blog posts a week not to mention other tedious tasks you may encounter. However, I feel that submitting your articles on ezine is very beneficial and if you want your internet business to succeed Ezine will help you. If you feel overwhelmed already by the amount of work already. I recommend checking out oDesk.com. You can find virtual assistants and articles writing services on there relatively cheap. Do not think of paying them as an expense, but rather an investment into your online business.

Why You Should Submit Guest Posts?

What is a Guest Post?

In short, a guest post is when one blog owner submits a post/article on another person's blog.

Why Should I Submit A Guest Post to a Blog?

I believe you should submit a guest post to if anything gain free traffic to your website. Writing guest posts can be a great way to gain traffic which is important especially if your blog has not yet been indexed by search engines. Submitting a guest post will also provide you with valuable keywords as you are writing the article and can choose the anchor text which can be valuable in search engine result pages.

How to Find Blogs to Submit a Guest Post?

There are some lists on the Internet of various blogs that allow other blogs to submit guest posts. In addition to using those lists, I recommend finding your own blogs to submit guest posts to. This can be done by simply emailing the blog owner.

Do You Have a Template to Ask to Submit Guest Posts?

No, I do not believe in a standard template for own blog owners. If you were to use a template that you found on the Internet and a template you developed for yourself, you would see substantially more willing blog owners for your own personal template.

What Should be in a Template to Submit a Guest Post?

I would keep it pretty simple. Introduce yourself and state your background. What is your blog about? Tell them you would like to submit a guest post and state how your guest post would benefit them as well as the readers. Remember to sound as professional as possible. You can even include a link to your blog to show examples of your work.

How to Increase Your Number of Registrations for Your Newsletter

I read a lot of online forums and blogs about website design. One of the most common questions I see is
" How Do I Increase the Number of Registrations to My Newsletter ? "

Often times, the answer is quite simple. Literally. Many times webmasters make the registration process lengthy and making it too long for them to register and often times just abandon or do not even think about registering because completing the registration would take too much time.

My number one tip for webmasters who ask this question. Ask the minimum. Seriously, do you need to know their income? Most of the time, no. You probably already have a good idea of who your average customer is. If you really think you will need this information, you could always offer an incentive to them to further complete their registration, once you initially get them registered. I would just worry about capturing their email address to begin with. If they ever order anything from you, you will have the reader's name and address as well.

If you offer a paid newsletter to consumers, it could be more difficult to get users to register for your newsletter than if you offered a free newsletter. However, increasing the number of registrations to the newsletter is definitely "do-able". You will need to create a landing page for your newsletter explaining the benefits of the newsletter and explain why they should sign up. As I mentioned in my article, "Design With a Purpose", each page must have a specific goal. In this case, the goal is simple. You need to get users to sign up to your newsletter.

I would prepare several different landing pages especially if you are using Google Adwords to increase the amount of registrations to your newsletter. You can try a few different things and using the URL, you will be able to determine which keywords are producing you more registrations and more importantly which keywords are not converting and you can get rid of them thus saving you money.

These are a few of my the tips I recommend for increase the number of registrations for your newsletter. Do you any of you  have any suggestions on how you get more registrations or any tips on creating a successful landing page?

Design With a Purpose

I spend hours on the internet everyday just surfing around to various blogs and websites. All too often I find that many webmasters are designing without a purpose.

What Do I Mean " Design With a Purpose "?

It is my belief that every single page of your website should be designed with a goal in mind for the reader. This goal can getting readers to sign up for a newsletter or getting readers to a "Thank you for Ordering Page".

How Do you Design With A Purpose?

Designing a web page with a purpose in mind is pretty easy once you identify what exactly you are trying to get the user to do. I like to give readers as many options as possible when trying to get them to my desired page. I offer options for my readers at the top of the web page, the middle, and the bottom of the page.

Finding Out What Works Best

I have also found that many people do not track various URL's. For instance, if I have 4 different locations for users to get to my desired page. I should have four different URL's for tracking purposes. This can be very important. Once you find out what works, you can use the data you gather to maximize all the rest of your landing pages.

Using Yahoo Answers for SEO

Some people like to believe that Yahoo Answers helps their website out tremendously because they are getting backlinks to their website, some people who have reached level 7 on Yahoo Answers can also edit the anchor text of the link which they think is helping their SEO even more. Is this true?

The truth is... that we really do not know how much weight search engines like Google give to Yahoo Answers for SEO purposes. Yahoo Answers is so full of spam, I really doubt that Google gives the backlinks any weight.

I do not believe you should stop using Yahoo Answers because there are more benefits to commenting than just recieved a backlink for SEO. A useful comment on Yahoo Answers will allow you to be seen as a respectable source of information and you maybe seen as an expert. If you are seen as an subject matter expert, visitors will be more apt to click on the link to your website.

I am a believer that links should be used for promotion, not SEO.

How to Get Traffic To Your New Website

Knowing how to get traffic to your new website is extremely important to the success of your website. Fortunately, I have built several websites completely from scratch and have learned how to get visitors to new websites pretty well. If you do not how to get traffic to your new website, read some of the tips below to help gain an edge over your competition.

Using Articles to Get Traffic to Your New Website

Articles can be a great way to get traffic to your new website. There are many ways to use articles to get traffic to your new website. You can place the articles on your own website, place them in article directories such as Ezine, or you can even use them to write guest posts on blogs with similar topics as yours. Any of these suggestions can get traffic to your website. If you are not a very good writer or not very familiar with  SEO techniques, I recommend you outsource your articles on oDesk.com. For those webmasters that are good writers or no not wish to outsource their articles, I wrote a post about how to analyze your keywords using Google's allintitle feature.

Using Adwords to Get Traffic to Your New Website

One of my favorite ways to get traffic to my new website is using Google Adwords. I love using Google Adwords for websites that have not yet been indexed by search engines. With the proper techniques, Adwords is definitely effective in getting traffic relatively cheap, but then again it can get very expensive if done incorrectly. I would recommend hiring a company to start a Google Adwords campaign for you if you are not familiar with it.

Commenting in Blogs to Get Traffic to Your Website

Commenting on blogs and forums can be effective in getting traffic to your new website. The first thing you need to do is find some blogs and forums that are related to your website. Providing relevant content to the blog or forum comment is vital. The more informative your posts are, the more people are going to respect you as an expert in that field and are more apt to check out your website. The key is not writing comments just to include your link in the signature line. Write to contribute to the discussion will also benefit you in the long run as you may develop a relationship with the owner of the blog and you could be asked to write a guest post for them which will get you many more visitors to your website.

Using Social Media to Get Traffic to Your New Website

Social Media is becoming more and more popular everyday. Webmasters need to capitalize on this popularity. Whether you are a new website or an established website, social media sites such as Facebook will generate you traffic everyday with the proper techniques. I am a huge fan of Facebook as it allows you to create a page and market it to a very specific audience. I always recommend having a few different Facebook pages for each website you own. One page for your actual business and at least one other page for something specific related to your blog. For instance, if you have a website where you sell camping equipment, you could create a Facebook page where users could like fresh water fishing. This has worked for me as being the most effective way of getting new traffic to my website. I also get plenty of steady traffic my Facebook pages. Like adwords, it can get expensive if you not use proper techniques.

Evaluating Your Google Keyword Competition Using Allintitle

Prior to writing an article for your website or blog, it is very important to evaluate your keyword competition on search engines especially Google. One of my favorite tools for evaluating my keyword competition is the allintitle feature on Google.

Once I have an idea for an article idea, I use the Google Keyword Tool to receive an estimate of the search volume on Google for a particular keyword. All you have to do is type in the name of the topic that the article will be about. Once you click search, Google will provide you with the search volume for that particular keyword as well as other similar ideas. Look at the picture below to see what would happened if you searched for dog training.


  


                   Evaluating Your Competition for Google Keywords

  When I look for an article topic idea, I look for Google Keywords that have 2000-3000 searches per month. If you look, the only Google Keywords that much that criteria are "private dog training" and "dog training phoenix". While the latter of the two Google Keywords would be good for a website about dog training in Phoenix. I believe that the first keyword would be better for an article.

The next step in evaluating your competition in Google is identifying how many web pages are using those same Google Keywords in the title of their web pages. To do this, go to Google and in the search box type allintitle: followed by your keywords, in this case, you will use "private dog training". After I did this Google search, I seen that my competition would be 6,780 web pages listed in Google. This is typically more results than I would like to see. As, I usually like results with competition less than 2,000 web pages. This is a pretty tough keyword to rank high for and probably not a keyword I would use to write an article. In general, I use keywords that are specific. The more specific the keywords are, the less competition you will have. This is the basic concept of identifying and evaluating your competition in Google. If you have any questions, feel free to comment :)